Saigon Files

Vinagame on CNBC

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:58:00 +0000

Looks like Bryan got a little face time with CNBC. Nice!

I think it was almost exactly a year ago today that we moved to Vietnam. I do miss some things about Saigon. Like the food and the cheap massages. I don't miss the weather though.

Geox Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Looks like Geox is getting some traction in Vietnam. This clip is pretty funny. My kids started wearing Geox shoes when they received them as birthday presents in Saigon. Now they love them.

Gloria Jean's Shuttered

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:16:00 +0000

One of my favorite places to hang out in Saigon was the Gloria Jean's
coffee shop on Dong Khoi. It turns out there was one here in San
Mateo at the Hillsdale Mall. Unfortunately it didn't make it. I
remember getting a coffee here years ago. It was more of a store
than a cafe, perhaps that's why it didn't last.

Buddha Burger?

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:26:00 +0000

Saw this on the side of a local diner here in California. It kind of
reminds me of Buddhist temples in Vietnam. Technically I believe
this is a Sunshine Burger, though.

Anti-Communist or Anti-Capitalist

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:07:00 +0000

This interesting article from the Washington Post brings up the point that the US is now investing heavily in Vietnam and asks how that fits with the fact that many Americans lost their lives fighting against communism in Vietnam. Having recently lived in Vietnam I can honestly say that there are some advantages to communism. I almost always felt safe in Vietnam. I would walk around Saigon late at night and not think much of it. Doing the same in San Francisco can be worrisome. Doing the same in parts of Washington DC could be considered insane.

There are drawbacks to communism as it's practiced in Vietnam as well. While I don't have first hand knowledge of it, cronyism appears to be commonplace. While this is true in the US as well, I think it's less pervasive. In the US you don't need to bribe someone to get your phone installed. You might have to wait a while, but pretty much the queue is served fairly.

My guess is that corruption at high levels is pretty much about the same in both countries. The advantage of the free press is that we hear about Haliburton boondoggles and maybe that keeps them in check. Although that doesn't seem to be the case these days.

Kite Board Box

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:41:00 +0000

On my last trip back to the US I decided to take back my kite surfing equipment. The kite itself is pretty small so that wasn't a problem. However, my board is 138cm so it's too long to fit into my large suitcase. I could probably have just carried it on the plane, but that would have been a pain.

I asked around and found out that there is a place that specializes in making boxes for things. These guys have a shop places strategically across from the post office at 53D Nguyen Du Street in District 1.

Having learned the Vietnamese Way, I took my board across town on my motorbike. My first problem was how to carry the darn thing on the bike. I tried putting it between my legs and in front of my chest, but it was too tall and I couldn't see very well to drive. I then decided to put it across the seat and just sit on the board with it sticking out on both sides of the bike. To minimize the protrusions, I tried to angle the board so it was at about 45 degrees rather than 90 degrees from the centerline of the bike. This made me a little lopsided but I eventually made it. I'm sure I was quite a sight driving around with a big yellow kite board sticking out from each side of my motorbike.

As I approached the shop, they immediately recognized a potential customer and waved me in. One of the guys grabbed my board and assessed it. He went back and pulled out two different grades of cardboard. I chose the thicker one for 100,000 VND (about $8). I swear it took him less than 5 minutes to fashion a box. When he was finished, the board slipped into the box without a hitch.

Now I had an even bigger problem of getting home with this even bigger and more awkward load. I couldn't sit on it anymore since it was now a few inches thick. I tried to convince one of the guys to come with me. This is the way a real Vietnamese guy would do it. He would have his friend on the back of the bike holding the thing while he drove. Failing that, the guys decided they could make a harness for me. With some red nylon string, they fashioned a nice little harness around the box with loops for my arms. With their help I slung the box onto my back like a backpack and scooted off down the road.

On the way home a storm was starting to blow in and the winds were picking up. I'm lucky a gust of wind didn't catch me the wrong way and toss me onto the road. In the end, I made it home with no problems.

The box held up well. Except for a little skepticism from the US Customs Officer at SFO, it made it to back to my garage unscathed.

This is another great example of things that just work well in Vietnam. In the US this box would probably have cost me three times as much and taken a day. In Saigon, it was done in 5 minutes for $8. Sweet.

Computerized Street Maps, On the Street!

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 09:27:00 +0000

I was surprised to see a computerized street map on CMT8 the other day. It's amazing that they put computers out in these little bus shelter looking structures. I've only seen one. I didn't have time to try it out, but I'm impressed it exists at all.

Here is another advantage of a well behaved society. If you had one of these on the street in New York City or San Francisco, I'm guessing it would be destroyed or ravaged for parts very quickly. Hopefully this will last a while on the street here. I'll have to go by later this week and take another look.

LeFruit Triathlon Raises $600 for Myanmar

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 09:14:00 +0000

The folks at Viet Adventure didn't waste any time passing the funds on to the Myanmar relief effort. The race was just last weekend. It was a great race and a good cause. Thanks to the organizers!

Destination Clubs

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:14:00 +0000

Just saw this article in USA Today covering Destination Clubs. We've been members of Quintess for a few years now. (Actually we joined Dreamcatcher Resorts, which merged with Quintesss). We've been extremely happy with DCR/Quintess. The idea here is that for less than the cost of a decent second home you can have access to amazing homes around the world.

I love to be able to pop in on my brother in NYC or take the kids to Maui for October break and have a fantastic place to hang out while there. They don't yet have any place in Vietnam but it seems to be on the list of potential destinations.

Disclaimer: We're investors in DCR and Quintess.

Saigon Centre

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:58:00 +0000

Auxillery building of the Museum of HCMC with Saigon Centre in the
background.

Note the 1960. A lot has happened here since then.

Blue Ocean Shower

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:55:00 +0000

The bungalow rooms at this Mui Ne resort have very cool private outdoor
showers.

The resort is called Bienxanh or Blue Ocean. It's on Mui Ne beach in Vietnam.

Triathlon Time

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:37:00 +0000

Heading to Mui Ne today for the Le Fuit Triathlon on Sunday. Should be fun! If we're really lucky there will be wind in the afternoons so I can get some kite surfing in.

Priority List from SGN

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:08:00 +0000

My fellow travelers. Your privacy is an illusion.

United Priority Baggage

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:07:00 +0000

At SGN they put up a list of passengers whose baggage receive special
handling. It's nice to have your own luggage area but I'm not sure
about the privacy issues.

Swiss Homeland

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:01:00 +0000

On my flight from Hong Kong to Saigon last night I sat next to a nice gentleman from Switzerland. We got to speaking about Switzerland, which happens to be from where my ancestors came and the reason I learned to speak French.

Just for fun I looked up the town where my Great Grandfather's family lived. I visited the town back in the 80s. The farmhouse is still there and the graveyard is filled with Beguelins.

Here's the map of the town of Courtelary:

View Larger Map

Back in Saigon

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:20:00 +0000

Made it back to Saigon. Had a great time in New York and San Francisco. Was lucky enough not to wreck a car on this trip back, bringing my average below 50%. I hope I can get car insurance when we move back to the US.

Highlights from this trip:

Saw In the Heights with my brother Chad
Ate and drank too much in NYC (that's a lot of vodka)
Hung out with my Emory buddies Peter and Stuart
Pilates class at David Barton Gym
Several great mountain bike rides in the Belmont Open Space.
Number of attempted kite surfing outings at 3rd Avenue in San Mateo

Got up a few times
Learned that Sergey Brin is a pretty good at kiting
Got a nice new wetsuit
Met a lot of interesting folks (and more in June/July I hope)

Almost got the solar panel installation sorted with Solar City
Lots of killer workouts at the PAC
Researched getting my Instrument Flight Rating
Hung out with Omar and learned about his new startup

Today it's time to get a massage and try not to go to sleep until it gets dark!

NYC View

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:39:00 +0000

From our apartment on Times Square.

Hell's Kitchen Flea Market

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:35:00 +0000

Kinda scary.

California Nice

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:32:00 +0000

Lovely day here in NorCal. Our new landscaping is growing in well.

Yahoo Messenger Phone Out to Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:54:00 +0000

Looks like you can now call Vietnam for $0.099 per minute using the Phone Out feature of Yahoo Messenger! This is much cheaper than Skype at $0.36 per minute. I guess Yahoo! is serious about Vietnam.

New York City

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:52:00 +0000

It took me just over 24 hours but I made it to NYC last night. I was able to use my United system wide upgrade all the way from SGN->HKG->SFO->JFK, now that's getting your value out of an upgrade! The old lady sitting next to me on the SFO to JFK commented on the fact that I slept almost the entire way. I think she was a bit disappointed when I didn't converse with her during the flight.

One thing I love about traveling out of Saigon is the fact that I can get from shower to gate in an hour. I got up at 5am, took a shower, grabbed a cab and was at the gate by 6am. When I checked in at SGN I asked about my upgrade status from SFO to JFK. The United rep told me that I was on the list but not confirmed. He then said, "It's just San Francisco to New York, how long is the flight?" He was surprised to find out that it's over five hours, about twice as long as the flight from Saigon to Hong Kong. Yeah, it's a big country.

Gratuitous Use of Office Documents

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Tue, 13 May 2008 05:05:00 +0000

Folks here seem to love to send around Microsoft Office documents. If you're sending a document that is not meant to be edited by the receiver, why not just send it as a PDF? Word and Excel are not great for reading documents!

Back in the USA many people won't actually have Word or Excel installed on their computers, so sending a newsletter out in Word format just doesn't make sense. MS Office software costs a lot of money, so it's often something that is just never installed on home computers. In Vietnam you can get these programs for a dollar or two on the street, so perhaps this is why everyone assumes you'll have it on your home computer.

Reasons not to send Office Documents:

Not everyone has MS Office installed
Reading MS Office documents is no fun (PDF is so much better)
Office documents carry viruses
Office is slow and a memory hog

If you like to create your letters and other docs, try saving them in PDF format before sending them out. On a Mac you can simply print to a PDF. I'm sure there is a simple way to do something similar on a PC. Another alternative is to use Google Docs. Nothing to install, but network access is required.

Running HCMC

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:20:00 +0000

For some reason I keep waking up before 5am these days. This morning I decided to go for a run. Saigon is pretty quiet on Sunday mornings so I threw on the running shoes and took off. I decided to head south on Pasteur from Le Loi. I've never been down that direction before.

Looking at the map now, it seems I ran into District 4. It was around 6am and the city was just waking up. I did run into a street market that was just getting underway. It was around the Cho Xom Chieu. I also got to check out the Ho Chi Minh Museum which is just along the banks of the Saigon River.

The temperature at this time of day is great. I might have to make this a regular activity.

You can see my somewhat random walk in the annotated Google Map below.

View Larger Map

Trapped in an Elevator

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:58:00 +0000

We live in a high rise building here in Saigon. Even though our building has backup generators, occasionally the power goes out. I've been stuck in the elevator a couple of times, but never for more than a minute or two. I ran across this video and it stuck a cord. It's called "Guy Trapped in an Elevator for 6 Minutes."

I found it hilarious. Enjoy.

Beach at the Ritz

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Beguelin) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:38:00 +0000

Great day here in Half Moon Bay. Note the American style warning sign.